Kissed by Chaos

Kissed by Chaos (25) - Desires

Kissed by Chaos

Chapter 25 - Desires

It was a glorious sort of afternoon, despite the new knowledge that Raafi had stumbled across today. It helped to know that there was someone else in the world whose life had been twisted beyond recognition by a supernatural being. He could not imagine what he would have done if he could not have spoken to Claire. Perhaps he would have gone insane. To finally be able to reveal all the thoughts that haunted him to somebody else was blissfully liberating.

The Arabian sun managed to creep over the dauntingly tall walls to soak into their skin. It somehow felt that much warmer as he sat there next to Claire. Whenever he spoke and she turned to look at him, the sun made her eyes look like a battlefield between fire and ice. The shadow of her long eyelashes fell onto her cheeks and now and then the breeze would send a few strands of her hair into a carefree waltz. He could have sat there and stared at her forever.

“Your Highness?”

“I told you to call me Raafi,” he replied firmly.

“Well then… Raafi?”

“Hmm?”

“I hope you don’t mind me asking you this, but what is your family like?” Raafi was startled by the sudden change in topic and when he looked at her questioningly Claire explained, “It’s just that you know my mother, you know my sister. But I know so little about you and your world.”

He sat silent for a moment wondering how much, if any, of his extensive family history he should tell her. “Well, my father is the King of Mirzan and my mother is the queen.”

Claire laughed unexpectedly, the sound flowing through his brain as he committed it to memory. “Really, Raafi? I never would have guessed that,” she teased sarcastically. “I know your mother is queen and I know your father is king. But what are they like?”

If this was how complicated Claire’s questions about his family were going to be, he didn’t know whether he could answer them without once again sounding like an emotional wreck. But, he would try. “Father is… very stern and stubborn. He must have his way or he will not be content. He is a good king, but sometimes he is not the greatest father,” he admitted.

A faraway look drifted into her eyes. Half of a smile pulled up her lips as she remembered a time before any of this insanity. “My father was stern and stubborn too. He could never quite accept who Elisabeth and I were, but in the end…” Her voice was almost inaudible at this point and Raafi had to strain his ears to hear her. “In the end, he was the one who laid down his life for us.”

Somehow, ‘I’m sorry that your father died’ did not seem like an appropriate thing to say. He wanted his words to mean so much more, to somehow drain out the pain from her eyes. Raafi could think of nothing except, “He loved you very much… and I’m sure he still does.”

The pain did not completely disappear from her eyes but when she returned her gaze to him, she was smiling. “That’s what I mean. Though it didn’t seem like it at all times, my father did love me, just as your father does.”

Raafi looked down at his intertwined fingers in his lap, wondering if there could ever possibly be any truth in Claire’s words. After all, how could she understand that his father’s love had been dedicated wholly to Adnan with nothing left over for Raafi?

“The difference between your father and mine is that yours loved you. Mine hates me,” he murmured, the words painful to his ears.

“Why?” Claire asked innocently, as if her question could be answered as simply as if she had asked him what his favourite colour was.